Joe Mathews, a California politics writer and thinker, here endorses Mike Feinstein, a Green Party member, for California Secretary of State.
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On May 1, Illinois State Senator William “Sam” McCann filed a federal lawsuit against the leader of the Republican Party in the State Senate. He complains that the Illinois Republicans expelled him from the Republican caucus, and now he is deprived of resources to represent his district. McCann v Brady, 1:18cv-3115, n.d.
McCann announced last month that he will be the Conservative Party nominee for Governor of Illinois this year. But he says he never resigned from the Republican caucus. It is not clear why his lawsuit was filed in the northern district, because Springfield, the state capital, is in the central district. The complaint says both McCann and the Republican Party caucus have offices inside the northern district.
Paragraph 41 of the complaint lists all the perks provided to members of party caucuses. These perks are all funded from government funds. The case is assigned to Judge Andrea R. Wood, an Obama appointee.
The Eleventh Circuit is expediting the case Hand v Scott. The oral argument will be in late July. This is the case over whether the Constitution demands that Florida must have objective standards concerning how ex-felons apply to regain voting rights. Although last week the Eleventh Circuit had stayed the order that the state come up immediately with objective standards, the Eleventh Circuit has not yet decided the big issue in the case.
On May 2, the Tenth Circuit refused to disturb the May 1 order of the U.S. District Court that had put Congressman Doug Lamborn back on the Colorado Republican primary ballot. The three judges were Jerome Holmes and Terrence O’Brien (Bush appointees), and Allison Eid (a Trump appointee). Goodall v Williams.
Lamborn’s opponents also tried to persuade the Colorado Supreme Court to remove him, but that court also declined to do so.
Tennessee requires 33,844 signatures to get a new party on the ballot, but only 25 signatures for any independent candidate to get on the ballot (except president is 275). The party petition is so difficult, it has existed since 1961 and has never been used, except in 1968 by the American Party. In order to illustrate how absurd it is for the state to require so many more signatures for a party than for an independent candidate, the Tennessee Libertarian Party has put 17 gubernatorial candidates on the November 2018 ballot. The Volunteer Times has a story about this. The Volunteer Times is a newspaper in Campbell County, Tennessee.
The story says 30 independent candidates will be listed on the November ballot for Governor.